IHC gives 25 days to recover man missing for five years

Justice Minallah laments failure of state institution in case

ISLAMABAD:

Islamabad High Court (IHC) has given the deadline of September 29 for the recovery of a citizen missing for the last five years.

The court said that the state institutions would have to admit their failure if they failed to recover the missing person, Imran Khan, until the given deadline.

A single-member bench of IHC comprising Chief Justice Athar Minallah presided over the case on the petition of the victim’s mother Nasreen Begum on Thursday.

Justice Minallah remarked that what would be left to say if one of the best intelligence agencies in the world maintains that they have no idea of the whereabouts of a citizen.

He said that the Deputy Attorney General (DAG) would have to accept it as the failure of the state publicly if the victim was not produced before the court in the next hearing.

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The state should at least be considerate enough to accept its failure if it could not find a missing citizen. “Shall the court give it in black and white that the institutions of the state have failed?”

The chief justice remarked that the court did not know the purpose of Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (COIED) as several cases were pending with it for last 10 years. He commented that the commission kept the victims’ families waiting for decade. The commission itself says that it Imran’s was a case of forced disappearance, Minallah noted. At this, DAG maintained that it was not the final observation of the commission to which the court asked then what was the commission’s purpose.

“If a person disappears even with his consent, the state is responsible to find him out,” Minallah stated, adding there was a possibility that missing persons have disappeared consensually after committing a crime. DAG pleaded the court to grant some time which was approved and the hearing was adjourned until September 29.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 4^th, 2020.